‘The Righteous Gemstones’: David Gordon Green & Jody Hill Tease Having “No Rules” For Season 2 And Beyond [Interview]

As “The Righteous Gemstones” began its Season 2 run on HBO over the weekend, you couldn’t expect its scheming televangelists to stand on ceremony. Indeed, the newest season of Danny McBride’s prosperity gospel satire moves fast to send the blaspheming, self-aggrandizing scions at the show’s center — bumptious Jesse (McBride) and his equally conceited siblings Judy (Edi Patterson) and Kelvin (Adam Devine) — back into battle with one another and their own worst impulses. 

Towering over all three is world-weary patriarch Eli (John Goodman) and the megachurch he’s built. As his children bicker amongst themselves, pursue their own follies, and nurse private grudges, Eli must face a combination of immediate threats from his own dark past and more existential threats to his empire. 

READ MORE: ‘Righteous Gemstones’ Season 2 Review’: An Ambitious, Intermittently Hysterical Mess

Back for more are Kelvin’s right-hand man, Keefe (Tony Cavalero), with whom he’s founded a bizarre God Squad of muscle-bound believers; Jesse’s wife, Amber (Cassidy Freeman), who’s emerged from last season’s blackmail scandal with a keener sense of who her husband really is; and BJ (Tim Balz), whose determination to be accepted within the Gemstones reaches new heights — or depths, depending on where you’re standing. 

Meanwhile, entering the fray in Season 2 are Jason Schwartzman as a reporter prying into the Gemstones’ secrets, Eric Roberts as a pivotal figure from Eli’s past, and Eric André and Jessica Lowe as a Christian power couple Jesse is eager to do business with. 

It all makes for glorious, genre-defying entertainment — which is precisely the goal of series’ executive producers Jody Hill and David Gordon Green, both of whom recently sat for a brief interview about Season 2. 

They’ve known “Gemstones” creator/star McBride since film school and since collaborated with him frequently, including on previous HBO series “Eastbound & Down” and “Vice Principals.” (Green and McBride are even more widely known for co-writing all three films in a new trilogy of “Halloween” movies, all directed by Green and set to conclude next year.)

READ MORE: David Gordon Green Teases “Intimate” ‘Halloween Ends’ & Describes The Sequel As A “Coming-Of-Age” Film

Though McBride is the sole creator of “Gemstones” and is considered its main creative force, Hill and Green are still closely involved as executive producers and episode directors. As was the case with their past HBO series, all three are a package deal where “Gemstones” is concerned. And with HBO already renewing the series for a third season ahead of the Season 2 premiere, that’s unlikely to change any time soon. 

As the series premiered two of its nine new episodes last night (the remaining episodes will roll out weekly), Green and Hill told us about returning to the lewd, lavish world of this dysfunctional American dynasty and collaborating with their all-star cast.

The second season of “The Righteous Gemstones” makes it clear that you’re staging a family saga here, with an ensemble cast and extended flashbacks adding to the sense of sprawl. You’ve previously spoken about seeing this story as less contained than “Vice Principals,” which ran for two seasons, and “Eastbound & Down,” which ran for four. Danny McBride has even compared its planned scope to that of “The Thorn Birds.” Has that vision been changed or clarified at all by working on Season 2?

David Gordon Green: I can honestly say I know nothing about the future of the plans of our narrative. Jody, you may, but I thus far have not been involved in any of those [conversations.] Everything has been very under wraps right now, which I think is very fun. When there is that internal unveiling of the concept, it’s just such an electric and creative part of the process. And as long as that can keep happening, it is cool to have through Danny’s leadership really engineered something where you have the budget to take your imagination, these characters, and these narratives to the maximum. It is fun just to keep testing and pushing and expanding. Until they’re colonizing Mars, I don’t see that there’s any reason to stop “Gemstones.”

Jody Hill: It’s really fun that there’s this rich, powerful family that — and you used the word “saga” — can just go and go. There are always people to explore, and there are so many characters. The cast is so big. All our shows, like “Eastbound” and “Vice Principals,” were really about one guy or maybe two. This is an ensemble, and that’s really attractive to me. Plot aside, it’s really nice to follow a family’s structure and see where that goes.

Jody, even back to “Observe and Report,” there’s a real thread in your work about masculinity in crisis, about male ego and entitlement as well as the larger systems that create, enable, and screw over these guys. Given what you’re saying about “Gemstones” as an ensemble piece that extends well beyond Jesse (McBride), what has it been like to step back from that “one guy” and examine other types of characters?

This is really the first time we’ve gotten to explore characters with legitimate power and influence. You know, in the past, it’s always been, essentially, people without money. This is one of the first times I’ve gotten to work with a family that has all these resources. They do know politicians, they have access to communications, and all that stuff. It works with our filmmaking, too, in that it gets to be on a bigger scale than some of the stuff they’ve done. So many of those themes are unconscious when they’re in their inception, but I think that that’s what interests me the most in terms of why this project is special, why it’s worth doing, and why it doesn’t feel like a rehash. 

The Gemstones are insulated from accountability through the immense privilege they enjoy within their empire. But Season 2 brings in characters who pose new threats to the family, as well as a development that elevates the first season’s blackmail storyline and continues to explore the ways the past comes back to haunt these people. How did you figure out the direction of this season?

DGG: Beginning with the blackmail themes of Season 1 and carrying that forward into an exploration of journalism and exposé, I found that very intriguing and very relevant as one conversation of “Gemstones” Season 2. I was excited about the Thaniel Block storyline, getting Jason Schwartzman involved and having someone as amazing as him inhabit that. One part of me just responds to that compelling narrative. Then another part is the God Squad, where I know there’s going to be ripped-up, greased-up bodybuilders all over set every day. How can you go wrong with that? 

It’s the balance of something that feels semi-academic with something that feels absolutely absurd, and then being able to put those in the same show — and in some situations, even in the same episode. I hope we’re making challenging television that people are entertained by. There’s a shit-load of laughs, but it doesn’t necessarily lean on the laughs to be compelling as a narrative. The writers have put together something complex and layered.

JH: I would just add that the plot is the plot. It’s really intriguing, people follow it, and stuff. But the ultimate goal, at least because it’s an ongoing series, is the pressure that it applies to the family and how they react to these external influences. That interests me a lot: how does that stuff change the family dynamic that we’ve established from Season 1? There are power struggles inside of the family. There’s love that they have from each other. There’s all the human stuff, like jealousy and greed. Just getting to explore those relationships a little deeper this season was what struck me.

You mentioned Jason Schwartzman’s role. Two other major additions to the cast this season are Eric André and Eric Roberts. Season 1’s ensemble was such a great collision of egos, how those characters bounced off one another. What do these new characters add to the mix?

DGG: With both those actors, André and Roberts, it’s about what’s unexpected. With Eric Roberts, he’s a rascal, and you know there’s going to be a degree of mischief that’s going to be really fun to watch. And with Eric André, I’ve just been a big fan of his. To be able to see him explode on stage and have this strangely charismatic performance, to memorize significant links of dialogue and [capture] nuance there like a seasoned performer… It really brought something unexpected and exciting, some degree of electricity. Having someone be able to challenge Danny, to keep him on his toes and to go toe-to-toe, that’s been really fun to watch and be a part of.

To ask more specifically about the tone of “Gemstones,” David, you’ve previously compared it to “Dallas” and “The Godfather.” You’ve worked within many genres, from indie dramas like “Prince Avalanche” to franchise horror like “Halloween.” How do you see the tonal balance of “Gemstones” changing as the series progresses, and how do you think about genre in approaching the series?

DGG: This is a show where characters could live, they could die, they could find success, or they could find failure. There are really no rules. That’s part of the thrill for us, as filmmakers involved in it, is that we get to exercise comedy and drama and action, all these genres that are jammed into this saga. I love that. It just makes it a big playground for us. 

And there’s no way for an audience to guess where the show is going because, as creative collaborators on this, we’re always just like, “The sky’s the limit. Let’s just keep surprising ourselves.” And if people want to play guessing games, that’s fun. That’s good conversation for message boards. But for us, it’s like, “Let’s shock ourselves. Let’s surprise ourselves. Let’s have some fun and challenge ourselves, and let each episode have its own flavor.”

JH: And I think that’s really embracing the TV aspect of it. It’s really a tricky day and age at the movies right now, in terms of what’s getting out there. You can have stuff that’s not genre, but it’s just about, “How well is it seen?“ And with TV, and especially on HBO, they embrace that sort of thing where, you know, we’re not restrained to, “It has to only be funny” or “It has to only be dramatic” or “It has to be an action movie.” It’s really nice to be able to have all that in the same show, under the same roof.

John Goodman is such a vital component of “Righteous Gemstones,” and his thread this season feels particularly compelling and dramatic. The performance he’s giving is titanic. Can you tell me about working with him on developing Dr. Eli?

JH: First of all, John is phenomenal this season. And, I mean, look, John’s always great; I don’t mean it that way. But on filming for the first season, he was working with people he’d never met before, and he showed up and did a great job while we were finding his character. 

This season, Danny has written some amazing stuff for him to do. I was constantly blown away, every day, by just how hard John would go and how he would show up. I think he really enjoyed himself, getting into this character. There were so many times where John surprised me on set. There’d be a moment you’d think he was going to go big on and cry, but he’d underplay it instead. I thought his choices this year were especially interesting. It was just fun getting into it more with him.

DGG: To be totally honest, I was very intimidated by him around the first season, because I’m a huge fan of his. I was insecure. I don’t think he really liked me for the first couple of episodes. And I think he saw cuts of the episodes, saw what we were doing and, by the time Season 1 was wrapping up, I feel like we’d found a trust. With Season 2, I feel like we found a friendship. 

It’s very fun when your job to some degree is to help sculpt and motivate and inspire a performer, to be able to have that connection. He’s someone who I’ve loved watching everything he’s done, from “Barton Fink” to Fred Flintstone, and we were able to create a character that is so dimensional and nuanced. I may have a peculiar directorial process or a way that I’m communicating with an actor, but to be able to have John Goodman look me in the eye this season and be like, “Let’s fucking do it,” is really cool.

“The Righteous Gemstones” returned for Season 2 last night on HBO. New episodes debut on Sundays.